A family began the Lunar New Year with what locals perceived as bad luck when a hospital wrongly informed it that a family elder had died and sent them another man’s corpse, a cable television channel reported on Thursday.
The hospital phoned the Yuan family in Nantou on Wednesday, the third day of the Lunar New Year, to tell them their 92-year-old grandfather had died and they should prepare for his funeral, TVBS reported.
The family, which had been celebrating the holiday, quickly turned its sitting room into a funeral parlor — decorating it with white flowers, candles, food offerings and the grandfather’s portrait.
But when an ambulance brought the body to the Yuan house, the family found that it belonged to a stranger.
An investigation showed hospital staff had mistaken another patient who had died at the facility for the Yuans’ grandfather, TVBS said.
According to Chinese tradition, sending a stranger’s corpse to someone’s home brings bad luck, and doing it during the Lunar New Year holidays doubles the bad luck, making it like a curse.
The hospital repeatedly apologized to the Yuan family and paid it compensation, the TV news reported.
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